Databases or other software applications that fail to adhere to guidelines and best practices pose a threat to the stability and availability of systems implementing those applications. For example, a database application, such as an application utilizing DB2® Database Software, might support a customer-facing web interface requiring the database application to maintain constant availability, such as in the case of ecommerce, insurance claim processing, technical support, cloud service, etc. interfaces. When such an application or system implementing the application becomes unavailable, a company can lose significant amounts of money in a short period of times (e.g., $800,000/hour or more).
Manually monitoring and enforcing standards, guidelines and best practices across all systems and applications operated by a company is very expensive and time consuming. As a result, many administrators or managers of enterprise applications/systems rely on random checks of data or system logs to ensure adherence to standards (e.g., after noticing problems in a production environment). This checking might identify some deviations from standards, guidelines, and best practices, but many costly problems can still occur due to the retroactive and unfocused nature of this solution.